Roundtable with Zimbabwean journalists
Transcript of media roundtable held by James McGee, U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe, with local journalists in Harare, April 8th 2009
Begin Transcript:
Ambassador James D. McGee: There are various types of democracy social democracies pure democracies there are many types of democracies I am not quite certain which type of democracy is going to work in Zimbabwe. The democracy that the United States wants to see is where the government takes care of the will of its people, the needs of its people. If Zimbabwe is truly moving towards that, then we are going to be very pleased.
Journalist: Are they moving towards that at the moment, are you seeing any progress?
McGee: We are seeing a lot of positive things happening. If you remember we had five principles that were outlined in The Hague and out of those five principles we are seeing tremendous movement on the economic revival of this country. We are no longer seeing the uncontrolled printing of money, inflation which had been running in numbers that I am not familiar with- quintillions, gazillions of percentage points. Last month inflation was minus 2.5 percent. So we turned it around we are going back in the right direction. That’s very, very positive. Other things such as the rule of law, respect for human rights- those things are not moving in as nearly as rapid enough pace to satisfy us. But again this government has only been operational for six weeks, so we want to give them the opportunity, the leg room, the political space to do what is right and show what they can do.
Journalist: You were on record earlier…
McGee: I am on what?
Journalist: You were on record…
McGee: I was?
Journalist: Yes.
McGee: Ok, if you say so…
Journalist: Saying that you would wait and see in terms of giving Zimbabwe support for the health sector and so on, donor support…
McGee: Continue with your question
Journalist: I just want to know for how long are you waiting for the changes to take place before you can offer support?
McGee: First of all we have never stopped supporting Zimbabwe so I am not quite certain where you are quoting me from, but I have never said that we would wait to provide support. If you look in the last year, the donor community and the United States is the largest contributor, we have given over US$680 million to Zimbabwe- that’s combined donor community and that’s the largest contributor of that amount is the United States of America. So to say that we are waiting to provide support to Zimbabwe and you mention the health sector- we do a massive amount of work in the health sector of Zimbabwe. So we are not waiting to provide support. I think you have all heard that in the last year alone the United States government has given over US$230 million to Zimbabwe and that’s in food assistance, and that’s in the health sector. We are extending what we are doing in the health sector, typically we have been working on HIV and AIDS but recently we have made a determination that we need to extend and look at areas such as malaria, tuberculosis and family planning. We want to get more into generalized health issues for all Zimbabweans. We are looking at a project where we can all in the donor community get together and provide funding to re-open Harare Central Hospital. It’s a hard thing to do; it needs so much money to revitalize, reopen that very, very needed institution but we feel that it’s an institution that is so integral to the health system of Zimbabwe we need to do something here with Harare Central and I am pleased to hear that the central government of Zimbabwe gave a million dollars yesterday to Harare Central to clean up some areas, not all areas, I was talking to a minister today not the Minister of Health but another Minister who was explaining how the- have you been to the mortuary area at Harare Central?
Journalist: Yes
McGee: What floor is it on?
Journalist: It’s behind the…
McGee: It’s on the fourth floor; you know the lifts don’t work there. If you had an unfortunate event and say your sister died and she was at the mortuary at Harare Central and your family want to collect her, do you know how to get the body down? They …… those are type of things we are trying to stop even though you are dead lets show some respect, treat people with respect.
Journalist: I want to ask, has the US Government seen the Short Term Economic Recovery Program (STERP) document and what does it think of it?
McGee: The STERP?
Journalist: STERP document A Short Term…..
McGee: We have just received copy of it we are still digesting and I am not going to comment on a document that I have not completed reading.
Journalist: Currently would you recommend the American government to release any form of fiscal aid in terms of loans to the government needs…
McGee: Again we have not stopped releasing assistance to Zimbabwe, we continue and we are now in the process of debating whether we are now looking at the report from New York the IMF to come in and said Zimbabwe needs immediately another US$200 million this year in emergency humanitarian relief and we want to get on board and make the move rapidly to assist Zimbabwe with that. I think what you are asking about is: are we ready to move into development assistance to Zimbabwe? Again let me refer you back to the five principles established in The Hague. Until we see forward movement with respect to human rights, rule of law those types of issues, the answer is we are still waiting. We need to see better movement; we need to see more forward movement and those issues before we are going to get into development assistance to the government of Zimbabwe. Let me cover here one very, very important thing, one of the key issues out there is, each month there is a huge group-what’s your total civil service here 130 000 maybe?
Journalist: Someone was telling me 220 000
McGee: 220 000! How many of those people are really working?
Journalist: I think less than a third.
McGee: It is illegal; it is illegal this is a very important point under the existing laws of the United States of America to pay salaries, what we call it as budget assistance. When you hear the word budget assistance with the United States, the EU, the United Kingdom we are always talking about salaries. Under the existing US laws it’s illegal for us to pay salaries. I cannot go and pay a secretary at the Ministry of Health, or an economist at the RBZ, or to a driver in the Prime Minister’s office. I cannot do that, I will go to jail if I spend money like that. So the United States cannot provide salary assistance to the government of Zimbabwe. We can provide assistance in a lot of other areas but salary assistance is something that our appropriators, the people who give money to give to you, said you cannot do that.
So what we are trying to do is look at ways that we can take care of other issues within the government such as refurbishing Harare Central Hospital. So the government itself can then take care of the salaries that it needs to give people, and hopefully that they will be able to generate enough revenue streams to be able to take care of this number of government workers that no-one seems to know the real number of. I asked the Minister how many teachers are there in Zimbabwe? The first person said 90 000 and I said that’s a lot of teachers here in this country and then I got another number a couple days ago and that number is now under 40 000. Have 90 000 people been paid? I don’t know.
But we need to get a very firm handle, the government itself needs to get a firm handle on the actual number of people that work for this government. In that regard we understand that there is a need for people to keep their jobs but at some point I think the government needs to look very careful and I know they are doing this at more public- private partnerships issues were private industry- and this is one of the things we want to see- private industry coming in and creates jobs. It is not sustainable in any country, in the United States or anywhere else for government to be the number one provider of jobs. Each month you can’t continue to pay people a US$1OO a month. At some point that number is going to go up. Some people deserve more than US$100 a month. You are not going to pay a doctor at the hospital the same as you pay a driver. So maybe you pay the Dr US$800 a month or US$900 a month and you pay the driver US$100 a month and next year prices go up and you need to look at paying that driver US$125 and the Dr US$1 000 maybe so government revenues continue to go up and the more people you have on the civil service the more pressure it is upon the government to come up with enough money to pay for those. So we need to change from the government being the first employer of choice to private sector being the first employer of choice and that’s where we need to see some changes. We need to see things put into a motion to allow the private sector to do a better job here in Zimbabwe.
Journalist: The US government has been issuing (travel) alerts, sort of warning to its citizens in regard to visiting Zimbabwe…
McGee: There is a travel advice that the United States government puts out for every country in the world, not just Zimbabwe. And the one we put out for Zimbabwe right now talks more about the health risk of the country of Zimbabwe than anything else. The fact the cholera is still an issue here there are other health risks in Zimbabwe and that must remain in place until we see absolute change in the conditions on the ground here in Zimbabwe.
Journalist: Ambassador, about the Zimbabwe Democracy and Recovery Act, can we see it being reviewed anytime soon now that there is an inclusive government in Zimbabwe?
Ambassador: ZDERA as well as the individual sanctions are in place and are going to remain in place until we see some positive movement. We are going to continue to look at things such as ZDERA to see how it does affect the ability of this government to move forward. If I were to make bet I would say that and I can’t give you a timetable for this, you would probably see ZDERA rescinded, taken off the table before the individual sanctions.
Journalist: Why?
McGee: Because the individual sanctions are just that they are against people and people need to show us absolute ability to change. Without that change those individual sanctions are not coming out the tables in actual fact you might even see more individual sanctions. The targeted sanctions against individuals- if people are changing then those targeted sanctions are not going to change. ZDERA- we are going to take a very close look at, we will continue to review it in line of what this Unity government is doing in Zimbabwe.
Journalist: But there is an argument that since these people like Minister Chinamasa would want to travel around and…
McGee: He can travel any place he wants. I don’t care where he wants to travel; he is not travelling to the United States. Why does he need to travel to the United States?
Journalist: For consultations…
McGee: Consultations with who?
Journalist: With the American government.
McGee: with the American government?
Journalist: Yes
McGee: He can consult with the American government 365 days a year, I am right here (laughter). I am the American government in Zimbabwe. I am the personal representative of President Barack Obama. OK. So it’s very disingenuous to say that the targeted sanctions are stopping him from consulting with the American government that is absolutely false. That is 100% inaccurate. Anything, anything that anybody in this government needs to the United States government about, the door is open.
Journalist: Ambassador, yesterday Deputy Prime Minister (Arthur) Mutambara was quoted to have said that sanctions, it is a misnomer to say that sanctions are personal measures and they are impacting on the ordinary persons’ lives. Is it true and what do you think of the statement?
McGee: I think that the Deputy Prime Minister is free, and one of the absolute freedoms that we enjoy in the United States as freedom of speech. That doesn’t mean that what you always say is always right. I defy the Deputy Prime Minister to back up his statements that the individual targeted sanctions are hurting people here in Zimbabwe except the ones that they are designed at. Again, anybody in this government can talk to anybody in the United States government. Your ministers can talk to those people anytime they wish. Why do they need to go to Washington DC to do that? What can they accomplish in Washington they cannot accomplish right here?
Journalist: And also the Deputy Prime Minister was saying the renewal of sanctions was based on ignorance and arrogance…
McGee: Again, I am not going to sit here and tell you what’s going on in the Deputy Prime Minister’s mind. I have no idea what he is talking about with ignorance and arrogance. Diplomatically we don’t use terms like ignorance and arrogance. It’s difficult for people in my government to hear somebody say, somebody who is coming to us and saying give us some money to hear the same person saying you are ignorant and you are arrogant. That doesn’t go real far.
Journalist: You say that there are these conditions you have in place for sanctions to be removed and in your on view is there any progress that have been made so far by the inclusive government to try and address…
McGee: Yes, there is improvement. We are pleased to see movement on the economic front. We are pleased to see the government trying to reign in the uncontrolled spending, the uncontrolled printing of money. You know every year; I think you folks covered the budget speeches for the last several years, right? That money was spent like in three weeks and the next thing you have a supplementary budget, uncontrolled spending that is going on and that’s where we got into this problem of more and more printing of money. Would you want to be paid in $Zim dollars today, anybody?
Journalist: No
McGee: Why?
Journalist: it’s valueless.
McGee: And why is it valueless?
Journalist: Inflation, hyperinflation.
McGee: Because of sanctions right? (Laughter) So is it individual sanctions no, no … we all know why the $Zim is worthless today because they continued to print worthless money on top of worthless money that’s why the $Zim is not worth anything today. You can’t do that with… I hope they are not out there printing the US$ somewhere
Journalist: Just on the economic front that’s where you have seen progress, what about the other sectors, the Human Rights…
McGee: No we have not seen as much progress in the … than in commendable progress on each and every one of the principles but there has not been nearly as much progress on some areas as human rights, respect for the rule of law, those areas are still lagging and we are getting even a third behind than what we have seen on the economic front so far.
Journalist: Now with this dollarization, is United States government making money out of this?
McGee: is making any what?
Journalist: Money…
McGee: How can US government make money out of Zimbabwe’s dollarization you know we are as a matter of fact printing more money because we have got countries like Zimbabwe using our currency. How can we make money for Zimbabwe? We don’t charge you for United States dollars. Your banks, any bank that is allowed to trade in US$ can order US$ and there is not a fee for those US$.
Journalist: I was asking because some economist saying there is what they call seignorage…
McGee: I don’t know the term, I am sorry you will have to ask my economist about that. But is the United States making money out of the fact that Zimbabwe is dollarized? The answer is of course not. Who is printing those US$, they are not printed for free. We pay people a lot of money in our treasury… and you got Zimbabwe using US$ you have got a lot of US$, How Kong, a lot of places that use US$ as the tender of … and that cost United States money to do that.
Journalist: On the farm invasions, is there any diplomatic push to really stop these continued invasions of farms?
McGee: There are various opinions. The United States does not have a dog in this particular fight. We look at the rule of law and respect for the rule of law and say that these farm invasions go contrary to that. We want to see the farm invasions stop. That’s a wide ranging statement right there. We want to see the farm invasions stop but we need to follow that up and say we want to see something positive happening with the land here in Zimbabwe. No one, I don’t think anyone thinks that we can never go back to the situation where it was in 2000 before this unfortunate chain of events started. There are a lot of Zimbabweans who can farm and should be farming; there are a lot of Zimbabweans who own land, who owned equipment in this country who have had that land and equipment illegally taken. Something has to be done to restore some type of balance between two competing interests. There are a lot of communal farm lands that are not being farmed right now, 60%. Before we started to farm invasions in 2000, over 60% of the food that was used to feed the people of Zimbabwe was grown on communal lands. It’s not happening like that anymore. The government said that next year we will not need to go to the international community and ask for nearly as much food assistance as we have this year but whatever the government of Zimbabwe comes to us and ask for next year, our commitment is we will not let the people of Zimbabwe starve, it will not happen.
Journalist: Ambassador, but I am still confused in this issue of fresh farm invasions, here on the other hand with the government keep saying these are the farmers who are defying the eviction orders that we gave them and here are what farmers who are saying no we have the right to own this land so as an Embassy, have you tried to go deeper and find out what exactly is happening with regards to this latest...
McGee: Again it seems it doesn’t seem it’s obvious to us that there is a conflict in the rule of law here. Rule of law says a person has title to that property there is a way to deal with that and the government’s way of dealing with that has not always the one that is problem free. I think a lot of people will be a lot more pleased with this if this land truly had gone to those people that the government continues to tell us are the beneficiaries, the recipients of this land but I have driven all over Zimbabwe and I will be damned if I see little poor farmers out there farming. I see some big mega farms out there owned by some fat cats here in Zimbabwe. I would love to see hundreds or thousands of tens thousands of small farms here in Zimbabwe, do you see that, am I missing something? Can I go somewhere in this country that you can tell me where I can see that? Is this what has been happening to the land that was taken? I am happy to go with any of you, any of you to see something that I am missing. Is that what’s happening? Its one thing to ask a question based on reality, it’s something else to ask a question we all know it’s a lie. OK. We all are intelligent thinking adults at this table, we know what’s happening each and every one of you know what’s happening in Zimbabwe than I do. You absolutely do. One thing that impresses me about this country is how well versed in politics people are. We are not nearly as adapt at all levels of society in the United States and our political thought processes as you are here in Zimbabwe.
Journalist: Mr. Ambassador, I have got two questions, firstly it’s about the G-20 Summit in London last week on Thursday, we understand there was an issue on US$8 billion bailout package for Zimbabwe tabled at the summit
McGee: I am totally unfamiliar with that. I have no indication whether this was tabled at the G-20 or not. It was I am totally unfamiliar with it, sorry.
Journalist: And also as one of the key donor countries, what is your position on the Central Bank reforms?
McGee: On the…
Journalist: Central bank reforms?
McGee: We do want to see Central Bank reforms. Central Banks are very, very important to any system. The Central Bank here in Zimbabwe has then the cause of many of the fiscal and economic problems experienced by this country. The Central Bank is the institution that has led the way and the uncontrolled printing of money which has led to the uncontrolled runaway inflation here in Zimbabwe. We saw immediately, immediately after you dollarized your economy that inflation stopped, it stopped. As I mentioned before that last month inflation was at a negative number for the first time that anyone here in Zimbabwe can remember. You were probably in short pants going to grade school the last time we had negative numbers. So, yes the Central Bank has been an issue. We want to see Central Bank reform. Right now we are seeing the Central bank is being stripped of many of the powers that it had taken unto itself. Not by anything in the constitution or any act passed by parliament but the Central bank just assumed these powers and nobody was there to tell them that they couldn’t; now these powers are now being taken away from the Central bank and being brought back to where they belong which is the Ministry of Finance. That’s not to say the Central bank still does not and should not play a very important role here in Zimbabwe. The Central bank is there to look at such things as inflation rates, they are there to look at such things as the lending rates, and they are there to regulate the banks, these are all very, very important functions and the good functioning central bank is absolutely critical to the economic well being of Zimbabwe. I hope I answered your question
Journalist: Still on the Central bank reforms, do you think the reforms should go as far seeing heads rolling at Central bank?
McGee: That’s not for me to say, that’s for the government of Zimbabwe to say. I am not here to say that any heads to roll, as far as heads roll I want to see some journalistic heads roll (laughter). No, that’s their decision. We are not telling the government of Zimbabwe how to do their business. The government of Zimbabwe says we want to be able to access more money from the United States. My job here is very simple, I am as I told the personal representative of President Barack Obama here in Zimbabwe but I am also the person who is in charge of the United States tax-dollars that is spent here in Zimbabwe and each year I have to make a certification I think I have to do it next month that says that the money we spent here in Zimbabwe has been spent in accordance with US law remember we talked about it earlier I can’t spend money on salaries so if I am giving that driver out there a salary and next May I tell my Congress and my President that we spent money illegally, I am wrong, I am wrong. At the same time, they will ask me even on your Humanitarian assistance programs are you sure, can you show us that the money is being spend wisely also that the money is being used for what we said it should be used for.
Journalist: Just one more question ambassador, the Global Fund (for HIV and AIDS, TB and Malaria), we understand last year that was abuse of that fund and you are the major contributors of that fund, now we understand you have also provided another tranche following that abuse of the initial tranche you brought in. What safeguards have you put in place?
McGee: The Global Fund itself has brought in staff from outside Zimbabwe to oversee the expenditure, the use of Global funds. Zimbabwe is still and should continue to be a major qualifier, a major beneficiary of Global Funds. You are absolutely correct; there were issues with the expenditure of Global Funds in the past that has been rectified, those funds had been recaptured and the Global Fund has now put in its own safeguards by bringing additional personnel to oversee the expenditure of funds from the Global Fund here in Zimbabwe. Very positive development- we do not under any circumstances want to see a return to the way things were before. The Global Fund needs to operate here in Zimbabwe. HIV/AIDS is an issue that we can beat but we need the Global Fund money here in Zimbabwe to do so.
Journalist: Ambassador, if you had your way, would you want Mugabe at The Hague for gross human rights violations?
McGee: it doesn’t matter what I want, I am a servant of the people of the United States of America, the people of Zimbabwe, and I will tell you if there is somebody from the United States I want to see there. You need to tell me if you want to see him there as a gross violator of human rights. (laughter)
Journalist: I said if you have a way?
McGee: I don’t even think about things like that, that’s not what I am here for, let me say this, I am not going to use the word please because I think that’s too strong of a word. President Mugabe has been someone of a stabilizing force in this so called unity government. There are a lot of things going on that President Mugabe has initiated to make things as smooth as they are, they are not totally smooth, they are nowhere close to be totally smooth but President Mugabe has been one of the lets say the diamonds in the roughs of this government so far. There are hardliners on both sides of the equation, folks let’s be honest when we talk about things that we know, we know that we have a political party here and a political party here and they are both trying to cram themselves into government right here and that’s why I say this is a very imperfect union. The both political parties want the same things. Zanu PF and MDC want to win an election. Under the government of national unity there are two things they said- within 18 months we will have a constitution here in Zimbabwe am I right? Everyone is spinning to that and within 18 months a new constitution and then six months out from that maybe a little bit longer calls for elections. Both of these political parties want to win elections. That’s what these parties are looking at is to win and get away from the government concept and look back at the components of this government and their political parties and political parties’ are in business to win elections. So that’s what they are striving to do and that’s what we need to ensure and there is nothing wrong with that, we are firm believers, I would much like to see a two party, a three party or a four party here in Zimbabwe that a one party system. The two party-system is alive and well in the United States of America. We always say- ‘if you don’t like the job that the rascals are doing, kick them out, vote somebody else in the office. That’s what we want to see here in Zimbabwe. If you don’t like the job that your representative is doing, there is no government in Zimbabwe without the people. The only reason for government is the people and that’s basic governance right there so if the government is doing the right things to take care of the people, get somebody else who will.
Journalist: What is the position of the American government on the perpetrators of violence and human rights abuses?
McGee: Like anywhere in the world these people needs to be stopped even in my own country we have people who have been accused and tried and convicted of human rights violations and that anywhere in the world that it happens it should be taken care of. It should be stopped, the perpetrators should be brought to justice given a fair trial and face the problem of the people they have abused.
McGee: Folks thank you, let make it as long. Thank you
End Transcript:
Issued by the U.S. Embassy Public Affairs Section
All enquiries should be directed to the Public Affairs Officer on hararepas@state.gov Previous remarks and statements by the U.S. embassy can be accessed at: http://harare.usembassy.gov